Santo Domingo - Dominican Republic. UNODC, through its Global Firearms Programme (GFP), organised a workshop on 21 April 2023 to strengthen the capacities of Dominican Republic to collect and analysis firearms-related data to monitor illicit arm flows and contribute to both measuring the achievement of Target 16.4 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and promoting an evidence-based action against firearms trafficking.
The workshop brought together 24 experts (8 women) from the Ministry of Defence, Customs, Prosecution Service, Dominican Port Authority, Dominican Institute of Civil Aviation, National Directorate of Investigations, National Directorate of Drug Control, National Drug Council, National Statistics Office, Ministry of Interior and Police and Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Statistics specialist Guillermina Barriviera, from UNODC Research and Analysis Branch, delivered a presentation on the international efforts to monitor illicit arms flows and its relevance for an evidence-based approach in policy making that contributes to justice, rule of law and development. Her lecture focused on the Target 16.4 of the Sustainable Development Agenda (reducing illicit arms flows by 2030), and the indicator 16.4.2 to measure the achievement of said target (proportion of seized firearms whose illicit origin has been established through tracing).
After that, the workshop focused on UNODC’s tool to collect and analyse firearms-related data, the Illicit Arms Flows Questionnaire (UN-IAFQ), which is distributed on an annual basis among all the States around the world to generate data on seized, found and surrendered firearms and ammunition, the criminal context of the seizures and other relevant issues. The IAFQ promotes a standardisation of data collection efforts at global level, and also facilitates the identification of trafficking routes, trends and linkages with other crimes, which contributes to building an evidence basis that helps to design more effective policy and operational responses at local, national and international levels.
The presentations were highly interactive, and they opened a debate where the participants shared their experiences in relation to data collection and analysis of firearms related information, statistics at national level and how to improve interinstitutional cooperation among the relevant agencies. They also exchanged views and ideas on how to better improve the national efforts to collect firearms-related data, share information among institutions and better monitor the illicit firearms and their incidence in the country. Among the discussions, the relevant institutions, including the Vice-minister of Security of the Interior and the Vice-minister of Control and Regulation of Firearms and Ammunition, agreed on the importance of enhancing the cooperation and coordination among the national agencies and institutions. As such, the country will explore the possibility of establishing a Technical Working Group with representation of all the relevant institutions to that end.
The activity was organised thanks to the generous support of Germany, in the framework of the Global Firearms Programme’s project “Support to the implementation of the crime prevention and criminal justice component of the Caribbean Roadmap to counter illicit firearms trafficking and misuse across the Caribbean in a sustainable manner by 2030”.